I received an email message the other day, and I’m quite sure you received a few too. Two things struck me as remarkable about my particular message: (1) How quickly I opened the message and purchased the item being sold, and (2) How many of the so-called email marketing rules (ALWAYS do this or NEVER do that) it violated.
Broken rules
In my instance, the rule-breaking message arrived late on a Saturday as I waited at the airport after news of yet another flight cancellation, the subject line was cut off, the unsubscribe link appeared in the upper right top corner of the message, and the message was primarily one stunning image.
Why it worked
Relevance trumps everything. I was not actively shopping and would not have searched for such an item because I did not even know it existed, but I am an active reader and I did have on my ‘someday soon’ to-do list finding a gift for a dear friend who’s been having a rough time and is also an active reader. Now I’m not advocating you violate CAN-spam laws or anything legal. But it’s a good reminder that many black-and-white rules and email marketing best practices are outdated leftovers from old whitepapers and PowerPoint presentations floating around the Internet.
Test for your community
I am suggesting there are no absolute rules these days. Test and tweak messages specifically for your community of changemakers. Here are my top candidates for ‘rules to break,’ but let me know if you’ve discovered others that work for your community.
5 Email rules you absolutely have to break
- ALWAYS send an email during the middle of the week
- NEVER send an email at the end of the day
- ALWAYS keep your email subject line between 30 and 50 characters
- NEVER put the unsubscribe link at the top of the message
- NEVER send a mostly-image email
